Turkey seem to be turning into an impotent giant under Mr Erdogan, Mr Davutoglu (son of David) and AKP's regressive Mohammedan oriented policies.

Almost each step Turkey has taken in foreign relations in the region seem to be failing leaving Turkey alone in the region and making her vulnerable future political, military and social movements.

The failure of fight against PKK under Mr Erdogan's ruling encouraged many neighbouring entities to take stronger stances against Turkey. And Turkey beside making loud noises, was able to accomplish nothing politically or militarily.

The latest event, downing a Turkish F4 is another blow to Turkish politics and it hurts.

Mr Erdogan and Mr Davutoglu and AKP's utopic ambitions taking Turkey to a places from which coming back almost impossible.

As always happened under Mr Erdoagan's rule Turkey will scream loudly but illogical, just as a toddler does, perhaps will receive a little sympathy from her parents (NATO, USA and EU) and that is all.

As Turkey screams more and more she will lose her influence, believability, and psychological might more and more.

Syria's National-Socialist tribal monsters days are numbered.
He wants to drag Turkey into hot conflict.
They even want NATO, Iran, Russia get involved in it in a much large scale .
These are all his last attempt to get out of the miserable situation he is in. Divert the attention, inside and outside Syria.

I thought Turkey was a big enough country not to need to run training flights so close to, or into, foreign airspace(?). Maybe they should run more training on simulators. Would be good if the US and Israel kept their 'traing flights' well clear too.

I hope you address the following questions at your 9th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON "EU, TURKEY AND THE KURDS" to be held later in 2012.

Q1. - While Turkey expects international support for its Cyprus solution, based on a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation with political equality between the 90% Greek and the 10% Turkish communities, it argues the precise opposite for its own Kurdish citizens, who not only number 25% of Turkey's population but have also lived on their historical lands long before the first Turk ever set foot, thus bi-zonality being a natural state as opposed to an outcome of an illegal invasion (Cyprus, 1974). Why?

Yawn.
What's wrong with the ONLY constitution Cyprus has?
The one by which it entered the EU?
Make it work with good will, Antifon!
An alternative would be what the EU recommends.
i.e. a bizonal, bicommunal federation with political equality for the constituent parts.
Seems that very, very few Turkish Cypriots will support your idea of a unitary state with what the Belgians would call 'facilités' for Turkish Cypriots.
As for Turkey, the EU doesn't really come into it (yet), since Turkey is not a member state.
But of course, your Kurdistan obsession has little to do with the issue here at stake, which is about NATO.
Cyprus could always apply for membership of NATO - perhaps even if it has nothing to do with the North Atlantic and is an Eastern Mediterranean, Asiatic state.
NATO membership means of course CO_OPERATING with ALL other NATO members and assuring mutual defence against threats.

Oh well, no likely solution or re-unification then.
Cyprus has failed to 'handle' the issue for more than half a century.
What likelihood that present policy will bring future success?
Sarkozy sold Cyprus for you, as a card to stall any constructive relationship between Turkey and the EU.
I expect rather that things will ''freeze'' more deeply from next week, with NO clue from Cyprus or the EU as to how to unfreeze things for the future. The hard rightist mentalities that hold sway cannot extend to think of anything new in this.
Of course, if no un-freezing is what is wanted, then end of Cyprus as a 'problem'.
It'll be the status quo as it has been for a boringly long time, for a boringly long time in the foreseeable future.

I don't think many in Turkey will be even exercised, let alone upset about that sort of development, though I find it pretty sad and regressive, and NOT the way forward to any better future.

Don't think so, Antifon.
You have written that you think Cyprus should model its governance on Turkey.
I for one, am pretty sure that you don't mean that at all.
Perhaps it's a problem with your English?
Do you think more clearly in Greek?

Turkey need not test the Syrian Air Defense system any more.It has since been proved that Syria has the capability of shooting down Fighter Jets on surveillance missions over Syria if she wants to do so.Turkey and her Western friends can help the Syrian opposition, specially the Free Syrian Army,by providing them with food,shelter and above all proper and effective weapons with no political strings attached.If necessary, proper training facilities may be made available to FSA.They may also be provided with heavy matching weapons when FSA will be in a position to free a defensible part of Syria. Neither Turkey nor FSA should expect to defeat Asad overnight unless an all out military action is taken against Asad's army which is not going to happen in the near future for obvious reasons.

When Turkey claims something it is important to recall how differently "democratic" Turkey is than the west & who it is we are in reality dealing with.

Recall Sledgehammer (Turkish Balyoz), the name of a Turkish secularist military coup plan reported by the liberal Taraf newspaper, which discovered documents detailing plans [which included scores of names by the way & excruciating detail] to bomb two Istanbul mosques and accuse Greece of shooting down a Turkish plane over the Aegean Sea. The plan was to stir up chaos and justify a military coup. Now Erdogan controls the same propaganda machine, the Turkish deep state.

Recall the provocations of Turkey in Cyprus in the 60s by bombing mosques and blaming Greeks in order to incite violence.

Think who it is we are dealing with.

Me thinks provoking Syria with a violation of its airspace in order to help turn Turkish public opinion around is perfectly within the realm of "reason" of the Turkish [leader] mind.

''Me thinks provoking Syria with a violation of its airspace in order to help turn Turkish public opinion around is perfectly within the realm of "reason" of the Turkish [leader] mind.''
I think this is just vapid, meaningless, idle speculation.
Not too surprising from self-appointed 'Europeans' guarding 'values' that are no more than knee-jerk reactions to the very mention of words like 'Turk' and 'Turkey'.

Antifon, your country is not a member of NATO, so butt out.
If you want to be a member of NATO, you have to learn to co-operate with other members and pledge solidarity with them if they are under threat.

Gianni, butt out of Cyprus first you Anatolian bores, and let's agree for NATO to guarantee the remaining 80.000 Turkish Cypriots' security for as long as needed. Until that happens don't you dare tell me what to do.
Take your troops and illegal settlers and butt out of my country.
And treat Kurds with respect, grant them political rights & full cultural rights, NO LESS than those you claim Cypriots must grant their Turkish Cypriot minority.

Looks like our EU will be telling you what to do, Antifon, since you need OUR money!
Join NATO if you want to be a part of NATO policy design and decision making.
Your Russian backers might not like your volte-face however.

''butt out of my country''
Your problem in a nutshell, Antifon.
If you are a member of European Union (despite being Asiatic and despite loony French Presidents who think otehrwise), there's no more ''my'' about any of it.
The word is OUR.
I agree. Blinkered nationalism - indeed any form of nationalism is the bane of European Union and quite possibly the mindset that will ensure its collapse.

The EU does not belong to you or Cyprus, Antifon, but to ALL EU citizens.
I'm neither 'Turk', nor 'Turkish' nor Turkish Cypriot
Good luck with your Golden sunset, if you can't quite get your nationalism to any Golden Dawn for Cyprus.
There's also one of your fundamental problems - as with so many like you. You find it quite impossible to understand that anyone you deem as holding pro-Turkish opinion could possibly be anything but 'Turk'.
Sort out Cyprus' problems through your government. That would be a great way to move forward.
Somehow, the history of Cypriot independence suggests very strongly that you cannot bring yourself to do that.
Yes, you have paid a huge price for the criminal idiocy of your golden dawn and murdering fascists like ex-'president' Nikos Giorgiadis.
But he came from your community and quite a few supported him then in their views.
If you'd not gone down the EOKA road in the first place, perhaps nothing like the current situation would ever have arisen. But that's pure speculation.
I guess the reply will be another repetition of the oldest tropes of Hellenic hard-line nationalism?

Eventually unhappy peoples will show their anger and frustration by causing civil disorder that leads to civil war. But Syria is under the influence of Nato country and old Soviet Russia (that needs it to maintain its influece and power).

Its not all about democracy, but it is a good powerful force that brings all groups to work together in a common purpose.

The Assad regime is rotting from the inside and its at the point of nobody has faith in promises and oaths of fielty any more...Cannot enjoy wealth and splendour knowing you can be blown up, shot or poisoned by most everyone who carries a grudge...no where to hide abroad. Answer is annihilate your enemy? But who is the real enemy because even Assad's friends will begin to question.

Perhaps a greater truth is that all psuedo tyrant regimes who are unaccountable to others will topple. Russia and China must question themselves deeply before playing to many moves. Even Tehran must itself.

As for Antifon, Polutter!
Your country is not a member of NATO either.
So the discussion is irrelevant to your national concerns.
NATO means co-operation with ALL other members and solidarity in mutual defence when ANY member is under threat.

I sincerely don't get you, Gianni. If the whole ruckus is strictly among NATO members, then sod off Syria. She isn't NATO member, nor a Turkish vilayet.
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And it's Turkey who trains terrorists on her territory and sends them to Syria; it's Turkey who harbours the rebellion's ring-leaders; and it was Turkish plane (armed or not) that happened to be in Syrian airspace.

only stupids believe that arab spring will bring democracy to arab nations..it is merely a replacement of one dictator by another even more fundamentalist dictator.
the western forces spent so much time and money removing mubark and gaddafi only to find out they were replaced by dictators who hate them even more...lol

One of the golden rules of statecraft is "The longer you procrastinate the higher the price you eventually end up paying"

The West procrastinated in the thirties, and what could have been done in 1936 in a week, in 1938 in a month, eventually took 5 blooody years to achieve.

Same in the Balkans. Had international military intervention taken place sooner rather than later, the former Yougoslavian countries would have been spared years of hell.

The longer the West postpones intervening in Syria, the greater the chances the country will eventually fall into the hands of the radical Islamists. In Libya intervention came relatively quick. Result, the liberal-democrats (at least by Middle Eastern standards) got the upper hand.

Most Syrians are not radicals (societies with a merchant culture like Syria's rarely are. However when your back is to the wall, you'll take help from wherever you can. By doing nothing, the West is forcing the Sunni majority to choose between surrendering to the brutal and murderous Assad regime, being slaughtered and ethnically cleansed, or ally with the radicals, the only ones who are actually helping thme and fighting with them.

Russia reaizes this, which is why Putin is letting Assad carry on. A virulently anti-Western Islamist Syria is better for Moscow than a moderate one.

It's time to intervene now, before we totally miss the bus and end up with another radically Islamist state in an already volatile region.

BS, Yoni.
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I mean, those who took over Libya are bullshit liberal-democrats by any, not only Mideastern standards. Same goes for Mohammedan Brotherhood's Morsi in Egypt, "young Salafists" (see the column in TE) in Tunisia, and so on.
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In the 1950s Arabs had jumped on the Naserite nationalist (with strong national-socialist connotations) bandwagon; Syrian Baathist regime is one of the last remnants of that vogue. Now they jump on another one - the Islamist. No silly Western intervention will change this.
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And why are you so sure that the West needs to repair what's wrong in the distinctive part of the world with 22 states and 320 million population, as well as enormous wealth? If they think that something should be done in their domain, they are jolly well entitled to do it. West shouldn't be envolved.

It is questionable that "the West", whatever that means, was instrumental in fouling (I assume that is the word you were looking for) things up.

The British and French mandates expired exactly when? And lasted exactly how long? Can they still be held responsible for th eabsence of good governance, rule of law and social justice? So theSoviets and the Yankees installed and supported "strong men" (a euphemism)in power for their various ends - can they be held responsible saecula saeculorum?

Or is it more a question of an imperial culture and imperial brutalisation. What is it about the Balkans, the Caucasus, western Asia and North Africa that makes these regions so viciously fractured? What do they have in common?

I was actually referring to a slightly less diplomatic term for expressing the same sentiment :).

By the eve of WW1 the Arabs had already begun to be influenced by European enlightenment and thought, including nationalism. Initially this was a positive evolutionary influence, since western thought did not come at the point of a gun. This changed after WW1, when the West (Britain and France, with the US looking acquiescently on) decided to occupy the former holdings of the defeated Ottoman Empire (Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel-Palestine). North Africa (Egypt - UK, the Maghreb -France) had been under western occupation since the early 19th century).

At this point (1920 for east reckoning), Western presence ceased being even nominally benign. It was this deliberate torpedoing of the natural political evolution that was taking place in the Arab world that set in motion the forces that artificially shaped the Arab world, setting the stage for a century of strife.

Natural evolutions can go wrong. The Arab world might have naturally evolved into despotism and radicalism by itself, but at least that would have been a natural evolution. Instead we got an aborted evolution, courtesy of the scalpel of Western imperialism which carved the region up into artificial entities that had no chance of ever evolving positively.

The fact that they left the region over six decades ago is irrelevant. A mess that took 20 years to make can (and usually does) take decades to fix (as the Talmud says "1,000 wise men have to labor for days to fix the well that one stupid man blocked by throwing a rock in it). The west threw the rock, the well got poisoned, and so far it has taken almost a century for it to reach a point where it can actually begin to be cleaned.

Bottom line, -yes. The entity who messes up should be held accountable, that's one of our western values.

Long treatise, Yoni, and quite messed-up here and there, but generally correct.
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What isn't correct, is your idea that several old wrongs (occupation of the former Ottoman vilayets, Soviet and American political brawl in the region, and so on) would do a right if another old fashioned wrong - invasion of Syria - is added.
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Never worked, wouldn't work this time round, too.
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All the more that the current bandwagon on which the Arabs jump isn't unfortunate Western import, it's their truly indigenous cult, invented on the Arab Peninsula. What the West should do, is preventing this fervor to infect its own land and people.

You can't be serious!? Active U.S. involvement in the middle east is less than 100 years old and only really took off after the end of WWII and the mandate.

In pursuit of it's own interests, the U.S. has in the past 70 years run roughshod over the legitimate interests of the people of the region and in complete abeyance of democratic principles it claims to uphold. It is no accident that the U.S. is not well thought of in the region.

One can only wonder where the Arabs are when it comes to human rights, decency and justice? Would it be fair to assume that their leaders are too busy keeping their populations ignorant while spending billions on trivialities and extra large planes for their top echelon?
It is neither Europe nor America's responsibility to fix and clean Arabian Augean stables.

Allowing for Lassez Faire may allow a Chronic Civil War like Iraq with casualties of 100,000. Or in the worst case, a Genocide like Rwanda with 1 million dead. Remember the EU allowed genocide to occur in Europe in the 90s in Bosnia with over 100,000 deaths only a stones throw from most European capitals.

Or a chronic low grade guerilla war/insurgency/ terrorism like Sudan, Somalia and Iraq, lasting a decade or generations.

Western countries have severe hesitations in intervening in Muslim Nations.

I think the UN should deploy its own Predator drones. Killing Hitler would have prevented WWII. Sometimes you have to think outside the box.

There is a new strategic choice in conflicts with less risk. Sending a dozen drones flying 24/7 around the capital Damascus does not risk any pilots. They are small and the newer ones are even smaller, faster and stealthier. They operate day or night, in all weather, 365 days a year without need for rest, relaxation or bladder breaks. They do not develop PTSD guilt-complexes. They allow war to be waged on a shoestring budget. (The Syrian antiaircraft missiles cost far more than man portable UAVs.) They will make any Syrian leadership paranoid and psychologically threatened, fearful and erratic. And they can start harassing Assad as soon as tomorrow from bases in Iraq and Turkey.

The UN does not seem to learn despite many opportunities to confront psychopathic, sociopathic and evil leadership. Diplomacy MUST be backstopped by force. Kill one man, save tens of thousands of lives and liberate millions.

Assassination can be a necessary and useful tool for Peace and Progress. That is the failure of the UN Diplomacy to think creatively. Given another chance, international diplomacy would deal with Hitler with the same Chamberlain appeasement and diplomatic tactics.

We are talking about an unnecessary war against Syria in which Turks have died. Assad might be dictator but so are alot of other people and Assad had been improving the situation in his country before the USA decided to victimize him.

He might be easy to assasinate but who says the next guy would be any better?

"The West can not control the Arab world by murdering one Arab after another."
No, it can't. I don't even want it to control the Arab world though, so I'm okay with that.

"Around a million Arabs are estimated to have been murdered in Iraq..."
That's not true. The real number is likely closer to 150,000 (which, of course, is still tragic), the vast majority of which cannot be directly blamed on the West.

"Beisde who do you think you are that you give yourself the right to end other people's lives?"
First, I have no power to end Assad's life. I'm just advocating it on the internet, which is entirely different.
Second, Assad deserves it. He's responsible for thousands of deaths and probably many more crimes. That's pretty much indisputable, and any just court would probably sentence him to death (or life imprisonment, which isn't practical here).

I know it's popular but I really get tired of the "killing Hitler would have prevented WWII" meme. A. First of all, easier said than done. There were several attempts on Hitler's life before the war started. B. Who could possibly have been thinking about preventing WWII in say 1937 or 1938? C. Ask yourself who you want to see killed right now in order to prevent a war or major military calamity in say, five or ten years. How would your list look compared to say, a Russian's or an Indonesian's? D. How do you know that by killing Bad Guy "I" you don't give Bad Guy "II" the chance he needs to seize power? Maybe you'll trigger some other chain of events even worse than the thing you hoped to prevent. The removal of Kaddafi has led to serious complications in sub-Sahara West Africa for instance. Look at what the removal of Saddam Husein lead to. E. Finally, assassination is a two-edged sword and when it comes to targeted killing the bad guys have psychological restraints that those of us with a more "conventional" moral compass are subject to.

If leaders of one country started to target leaders of another then all leaders would be at risk. Leaders don't like this scenario; they prefer to play the war game with anonymous soldier-lives or civilian lives.

Not obvious that killing Assad would change much. Assad has strong support from the Syrian military upper ranks, who will continue to cling to power Assad or no Assad. They know their goose is cooked if they relinquish power. We should expect an orgy of revenge killings if the opposition grabs power with those responsible for massacres are still in Syria. Too much blood has been spilled already for people to forgive and forget.

“Assassination can be a necessary and useful tool for Peace and Progress.” – Connect the Dots

I feel compelled to point out that assassination is cold-blooded murder. Any civilized nation cannot condone, let alone engage in, murder as a policy, howsoever a ‘ ... useful tool for Peace and Progress’ it might be. Further, anyone who claims that such acts are necessary is merely trying to excuse inexcusable behavior exactly as any bandit might do.

It is not an issue of pragmatics or reciprocity; it is an issue of *ethics*. As soon as your leaders choose unethical means of meeting their objectives, then your society has fallen into barbarism, regardless of the civil and human rights that may be inscribed in gold over the marble portals of your institutions.

If that's your criteria that he's responsible for thousands of deaths than barak should be eligable as well. His rules of engagement have caused thousands of our troops deaths because he values mooslims more than americans

Examples?? The number of casualties in Afghanistan have set records every month since barak has placed more value on moooslim lives than US Troops. You only need to watch gun camera footage to see what these guys ave to go thru before they can shoot. Its also the reason why the military is having so many problems with suicides and PTSD

Alright. You seem to be right about the casualties since Obama took office. Props, mandinka1.

You have to remember though, hitting civilians is a bad thing. It's counterproductive in so many ways, not to mention tragic. It makes the US look like the bad guys. Not helpful if we want to curb Taliban recruitment.

"Its also the reason why the military is having so many problems with suicides and PTSD."
There you go well past your evidence.

First, the distinction between cold-blooded murder and an execution (as conducted by a state) is a tiny thing called 'due process.'

If you hold a formal trial and the individual has the opportunity to defend himself, along with all of the other trappings of a formal trial, then an execution can legitimately follow. That is, when the execution comes *after* the trial then the State can take the person’s life without it being murder.

If the execution comes *before* the trial, however, then the state has acted arbitrarily and outside of its legal bounds, and the act is murder, regardless of whatever show-trial is held after the fact.

Second, the issue is not how I happen to feel about the assassination of any particular person; the issue is the morality of the act. A State *must* strictly follow its own laws and *must* strictly follow due process or the State has abandoned the Rule of Law. This is independent of whether the act is on its own soil or on that of other nations.

Under the conditions of war, things change, but last I heard the only nation at war with Syria was Syria itself, and so the assassination of its leaders cannot arbitrarily be undertaken by any nation or collection of nations without it being murder.

Its obvious that you have no interaction with our troops. They are fed up having their hands tied behind their backs, inability to fight and take out the enemy. It results in lousy morale and a them questioning why they are there and looking for away out.
Next time you in an airport buy a soldier a beer and let him tell you what's going on

(Mostly) guilty as charged, unfortunately. I don't live in an area where there's much of a military presence.

I'd still like more than your second-hand (or even third- or fourth-hand) evidence, though. Talk to one of your military buddies and write up a transcript of the conversation. If that's not doable, just get me a source for your assertions.

Look, what you're writing is interesting, and, if I get some evidence for it, might even change my mind. At the very least it will convince me that you aren't just making stuff up.

Also I'll stop asking you to "please stop making Republicans look stupid" for at least a week or so.

" Two young men, the pilots, died. There will be a lot of hot air and after that nothing.
One of the pilots had a small kid and a pregnant wife. Two children will grow up without a father."

Yes, because some two-bit little wannabe sultan and his henchmen sent those pilots on that ill-fated mission. Are you suggesting that those pilots just went on a joyride on their own? Your attempts at eliciting sympathy for the pilots is quite disingenuous. They were sent on a mission by their military superiors, who were playing with their lives; and now you, and your ilk, are shedding crocodile tears. Oh, please... Yes, it is sad that they died, but put blame where it belongs - if you have it in you...

Mr Tahir:
I assume you are Turkish and prefer to spare Turkish blood.
But you fail to see the thousands of Deaths of Syrians as being tragic.
And you assume a bloody Civil War that lasts for years in Syria will not impact its neighbors.

Step back from your own self-interests and look at the big picture: Middle East Peace and War will affect you even if you are Turkish and not Arab. There is Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide happening in your neighborhood. You are only as safe as your neighborhood and that includes Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Israel, Armenia and Kurdistan.

The regime of Assad is a brutal and repressive dictatorship that is massacring its own people simply to cling on to power. It has a history of supporting terrorism against Turkey and its shooting down of an unarmed Turkish fighter jet over international waters is another in a long list of outrages.

There is no reason why Turkey should be expected to maintain cordial relations with such a deplorable government. The sooner the Syrian people have an alternative to the Assad regime, the better it will be for them and the whole world.

You say, there is no reason why Turkey should be expected to maintain cordial relations with such a deplorable government.
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To begin with, the Turkish government of the day isn't one bit less deplorable than the Syrian one. 12,000 people have allegedly died in Syrian civil war thus far; only one of several Turkish domestic conflicts, that with the Kurds, led to much bigger number of casualties.
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It's the kettle calling the pot black, as far as Syria and Turkey are concerned.

Let’s think about this. They know Syria has a "state-of-the-art" air defense system, so they intentionally fly a plane into Syrian airspace knowing that Syria will respond appropriately (as they have the means).

It seems simple to me. It’s like poking a dog to get it mad, and then saying "look, this dog is vicious, we should put it down!"

I think these wars in the middle east are for two main reasons:
1) To destabilise the region (if bribing the governments don’t work) so that Israel is more 'in control' of the area.
2) To protect the buying power (especially the ability to buy oil) of the American dollar.

I wish people would stop saying to "oust these evil dictators" and instead say to "forcibly install pro-western governments", because that’s the reality of the situation. Theres limited oil, and the west wants it.

"I think these wars in the middle east are for two main reasons... To protect the buying power (especially the ability to buy oil) of the American dollar."

Syria has very little oil, and while I'm no economist, I can't figure out how intervening in Syria would prevent inflation.

"Theres limited oil, and the west wants it."

See, even in the cases of Iraq and Libya, the "it's all about the oil" theory was sort of weak. There was just no possible way that the amount of oil gained that way would be worth the costs of military action. In Syria it's ridiculous. The US would be better off invading Ecuador than Syria if the idea is to get Syria's oil.

What you are not seeing is that the ones benefiting from the oil are the companies, not the country, and not the government. You spend billions of public dollars to make millions of dollars that will go directly into your pocket. Companies have WAY too much power in this country.

Just a side note: The Spanish government went bankrupt 8 times while in the hight of its empire. Same concept, the government was waging wars all around the world and the only benefactors were the companies, not the nation itself. Learn from history or be condemned to repeat it.

That being said, I had difficulty finding more than a couple of oilfields in Iraq that were actually operated by US companies, and those were jointly operated. I mean, come on. If US oil companies really wanted to get Iraq's oilfields, they were terrible at it. I'd be surprised if more than 10% of Iraq's oil business goes through US oil companies at all.

I suppose that with the information I have, I can't rule out your theory. But the fact that US oil companies seemingly did so terribly at getting the oil is really hard to make sense of using the theory.

You're absolutely right. However, it wasn't just the oil companies. Don't forget about Haliburton, all the different defense contractors (BAE Systems, Lockhead Martin, etc. etc.).....the list can go on and on. But many large companies (coincidentally connected to prominent administration officials at the time) benefitted BIG time from these wars. All at the expense of the public budget.